Tuesday, May 19, 2015

22

I'm almost at the end of my 3 months teaching contract. What a relief.

I wouldn't say that it was tough or I hated it. I love and hopefully will always love teaching. But it wasn't a walk in the park. I've been teaching in 3 different schools and each school has its set of challenges. For this particular school, dealing with the male teenagers is still something I've yet to master.

Throughout the years, I realized that my teaching skills and classroom management have improved. I'm stricter, firmer, bolder in class, yet still approachable and can be your friend outside class, if you're even qualified to be one. I admit that I haven't been the nicest teacher lately to my Form 5 students. I've scolded them in ways that even surprised my fellow teaching friends. How I wish the students knew why I got so angry sometimes that I blurted harsh remarks to them.

You see, the Form 5 classes assigned to me are weak classes. Looking at the ways they're behaving, saying, rebelling, I don't think they're aware on how valuable time is before SPM kicks in. They are in school because they have to, not because they want to. Most of them brought phones to school instead of pencils and books. I keep begging them to please have some mercy on themselves. "It's not too late, guys. Please start now", "I'm trying to help you save your future while you still can" are among my mild babbles to them. It escalated to "if you're planning to become a fishmonger or a petrol station attendant, then please keep damaging your future like what most of you are already doing now" or etc whenever I just lost it.

Sigh.

I've seen what laziness and bad attitudes have done to some people I personally know. I wouldn't want the same things to happen to the students. Was it wrong for me to care? Or is it best to just, "buat bodoh"?

This is the part when teachers should ask themselves, "Why did I choose to become a teacher?"